Time investment

In January I felt as if I put too much time in, pushing myself to exhaustion, not getting enough sleep etc. So I February I tried to take it a bit easier. My goal was to put in 7 hours of streaming everyday on a strict schedule then put in 2 hours of content creation for YouTube. When it came to streaming I hit all of my goals for time investment, was on time everyday and streamed for 7 hours at least.

When it came to YouTube… I slacked massively. I love the freedom and real time feedback you get with streaming, there really is no pressure to create something specific and the people who watch make it much more entertaining due to being able to react in real time.

Putting in less hours in total was meh. It’s really nice to be able to chill but I don’t feel as fulfilled, it just feels like wasted time – even though I’m probably less stressed and maybe slightly happier. Right now I feel incredibly motivated to put in a lot of hours but looking back on January, knowing that it was stressful I don’t want to change up my schedule to force more hours out of myself. I think I’ll stick with the same hours but if I feel like I can do more in my free time then I’ll just go for it, if not then I’ll just chill.

Income

Here’s what everyone really wants to see, I guess. Most of these numbers are estimates, because sites tend to calculate pay outs months later but they should be close to accurate. All currency is in USD.

Tips: $1450

Twitch Subs: $242.50

Casting with Basetrade: $104

Showmatch vs Demuslim: $50

Casting with Desrow: $40

Twitch Ad Revenue: $32.30 (I didn’t run ads in Feb, I hate ads. This is just from unavoidable pre-rolls)

YouTube Ad Revenue: $15

Total: ~$1934 (84.5% increase over January)

Numbers/Growth

Here are the view numbers, followers etc. for Twitch and other social media.

Twitch Subs: 97, +11 in February

Twitch Followers: 6184, +392 in February

Twitch Avg Concurrents: 150~ again really hard to know because Twitch doesn’t have this stat anywhere, just a guess could be very far off. My viewer numbers for SC2 are way higher than the other games I stream.

YouTube Views: 765343 Total views, +12000 in February

YouTube Subscribers: 7146, +21 in February

Twitter Followers: 1998, +128 in February

Facebook Followers: 467, +6 in February

Analysis

In terms of putting in the time into streaming that I wanted to, February was amazing. However putting time into creating YouTube content and other social media didn’t go so well. I’m honestly not sure exactly what the reason for this is when I’m super motivated to stream other than I just enjoy streaming so much. That is something I definitely need to focus on for March as having a presence on YouTube and other social media is amazing for growth. Growth in general was pretty pathetic and if I’m going to make a living off of this then I definitely need to push for far more growth in the next and upcoming months.

Income from streaming was amazing this month in comparison to last, with an 85% increase. It may have just been a one off month with good tips because the average viewers of the stream was pretty similar. Getting invited to showmatches and casting helped and I’m invited to some more things for March, which is rather nice.

In terms of health (because lack of sleep and stress was a factor last month) This month was pretty great. I socialized more, slept better, ate well, exercised a bit and was less stressed. Sleep is still haunting me, even though I slept better this month due to putting less time in I’m still struggling massively, some nights I roll around for hours and get nowhere… For whatever reason when I get into bed I instantly become wide awake. Thinking about getting sleeping pills to combat the really bad nights but don’t want to get into the routine of taking them regularly obviously. Probably need to ban myself from using my phone in bed, it’s just too irresistible.

As for schedule I’m going to change it up a bit. I have no problem waking up for streaming so I may aswell just make it the first thing I do in the day. Earlier streaming times are also better because there are more people on Twitch in general around that time. Times suck for Australia honestly, the peak time for Twitch is somewhere around 8am Australian time which means ideally the best time to start streaming would be 3-4ish hours before that with a 7 hour stream and as seen in January I struggled with such early times due to sleep issues. I’ll probably start streaming at 8am this month, meaning I can get up at 7:30am, should work out pretty well with my sleep and also cater for EU viewers a tiny bit. I think pushing my stream back 5 hours in Feb definitely brought in lower viewer numbers but that’s just a feeling I have.

When it comes to stream, content or game focus I don’t have full direction. What I know for a fact is that SC2 will always open my stream and I will always create content for SC2. In February I managed to get back to GM which was very satisfying after struggling for months in Masters after moving back to Australia. I had to focus up a lot and really push myself to get back up to GM which made the game much more enjoyable. Since starting streaming a LOT I kinda gave up on going for heavy improvement because I don’t think being the best player is possible while streaming, I didn’t realize it would make me enjoy the game less. So while I still believe it’s definitely not possible to practice as efficiently as players who are not streaming, I still want to focus more when I play and have some goals for improvement; probably just climbing up higher in GM for now. As for other games It’s weird, there are a lot of games I enjoy and a lot of different ways I could take the stream. I could go full out stream SC2 all day, stream for a couple of hours focused with improvement then make the latter part of the stream learning focused, going over viewers replays or even casting. I could go into casting Heroes as I believe there is space for a caster in Heroes as It’s still fresh and also believe the game will grow massively. I could go down the entertaining route and play games like Arma 3: Battle Royale which a lot of my current viewers love, along with other 1 off games that I think would be exciting. Not sure exactly where I want to take it right now, I’ve been thinking about it a lot but It’s really hard to decide because I’d be happy with all routes, I think. So for now I think I’ll schedule for a couple hours of focused SC2 in the beginning but leave the rest of the day open.

That just about wraps it up, my tentative schedule for March looks like this:

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About Fenn3r

I'm a professional streamer and content creator for Twitch.tv and YouTube. I'm currently in love with Overwatch. Therefore, Overwatch will be my main focus both during my livestreams, and the main feature of my YouTube channel.

My stream offers a relaxed, down-to-earth atmosphere where you can hang out and chill, watch gameplay, and join in on meaningful, friendly and fun discussions. I'd be happy to have you join me over at twitch.tv/fenn3r for some live Overwatch action!